Alice and her big sister were sitting on the grass. Her sister was reading a book but Alice had nothing to read. She looked at the book again. There were no pictures in it.

"What good is a book without pictures?" she wondered.

It was a very hot day and Alice wondered what to do. "I'm so sleepy. Shall I look for some flowers or is it too hot?" said to herself. She saw a leaf falling from a tree but she was too sleepy to look at it.

Just then a white rabbit ran by very near to her. That does not happen every day but Alice did not wonder about it. She did not wonder very much even when the rabbit said to itself. "Oh! Oh! I shall be too late!"

But she did wonder when the rabbit took a watch out of its pocket and looked at it. "A rabbit with a pocket?" Alice asked herself. "And a watch in it?" She jumped up and ran after the White Rabbit. She was just in time to see him go down a big rabbit hole. Alice went into the hole too. She didn't stop to wonder how she could get out again.

The rabbit hole went along just under the ground and then... Alice was falling... down... down... down.

She was not falling quickly. She had time to wonder. "What's going to happen next?" She looked down but there was no light there.